one is need, lots is greed.

Having a few log in probs with Google, so future postings may be a little erratic.  Well, that coupled with utter laziness is a recipe for failure ce n'est pas?

So, lots been goin' daaaan here.  We've had a holiday (and a couple of breaks too, lucky us) and Oliver has turned 12.  The weather has turned nice, and the garden is yet again out of control.  Think Day of the Triffids.

Mark has taken to competitive running and so Oliver and I have been gallivanting across the countryside to see him take part in events in hitherto unheard of villages, scuttling across farmlands and heaving himself up and down dale.  It is good to see him immersing himself in another hobby - he is very all or nothing, and no stone is unturned in his pressing quest to be better at it.

Albufeira, Portugal:

Our hotel room, with a rather fetching view of D block:

 

 

post running snaps:

 





Determined to crack the cupcake code in time for Oliver's birthday, I did a straw poll amongst some cakey friends and google (my new best friend) and decided upon using Stork instead of heavy butter for the cakes.  Zut alors.  I weighed the eggs (sans shells) and used exactly this amount for marg, self raising flour and caster sugar.  No pissing about - job done.  I is one happy gal.  For the  frostings I went for Hummingbird bakery recipes (butter all the way) and the result is a thing of beauty and a joy to scoff in a few bites.  Oh yeah, I am the Cake Meister. 

lol.

His birthday, despite the excited build-up - was low key, and he is starting to feel the bite of getting older.  My theory is that it is the self awareness which eats into every emotion and can add some reservations to the joy of celebration. 

On birthday boxing day Oliver and I took afternoon tea here:

And ate (most of) this:

Oh such greed.  One between two next time methinks. 

And so to my latest crochet crisis.  I haven't been enjoying crochet lately.  The enforced activity of finishing Katie's blanket kind of did for me, and left me feeling as if I couldn't be arsed to pick up a hook anymore.  Eventually, unable to just sit and watch TV of an evening, I added some more to this,

 

which is a fast-grower it has to be said, but is not inspiring me.  Then, at the end of May, I started a brand new one, in chunky, in zig zag chevrons.  It took bloody AGES to get the foundation row right, particularly as it is for a king-size bed, and therefore verrrry lonnnnng.  So far, these few rows have already cost me about £20, and that's fine and dandy if it is a blanket I am loving, and will use forever.  But each row takes more than your average wee while, and every colour change is virtually a new ball of yarn.  I don't use chunky normally, and therefore keep coming to a complete standstill when it runs out as I have no stash backup.  The colour range of Stylecraft chunky is not as broad as in the acrylic, and I kind of felt 'bullied' into choosing these colours.  I don't like the navy and cream and I can't face frogging it back.  Being a one-piece job means it is not easily portable either and the whole thing is just making me crosser and crosser. 



 

 

What I have decided upon is something like this, which I have always liked and is both colourful and portable.  AND I always have stylecraft kicking about AND they do lots more colours than the chunky.  So there. 



 

 

 

Chunky shmunky. 

 

Never again.

and the next...

Last Sunday was my niece's 17th birthday and I gave her this;

This blanket almost sent my fingers into early rheumatism such was the volume I had to complete on a daily basis come the last few weeks.  I am really happy with it, she seemed to and I hope she uses it for many years to come.

 

Birthday girl.

 

So, left project-less and adrift, I tinkered about with a few options:

 

 

 

 

 

Then settled for a join-as-you-go chequerboard granny. 

 

 

 

This seems to be growing quickly amidst the thrill of back to back Masterchef episodes, and the colours please me.  Particularly the new Stylecraft ones:

 

 

Actually, I'm not even sure that the red is a new one - just new to me.  I may be wrong.

 

It has been known.



 

 

me-yowl.

There is much to say.

Tomorrow it is our 15th wedding anniversary.  This is some achievement I can tell you.  Ours has not been a smooth path of marital bliss, rather a rocky road littered with the issues of childhoods past, a vengeful ex, the anguish of parenting often absent children plus the normal pressures of everyday life.  There have been tears, many, many tears, there has been anger, much, much anger but there has always been love - much, much love.  For each other, for the children between us and above all, the belief that the family  life we both always wanted is within our grasp.

It makes me feel smiley happy that tomorrow we will sit down for a meal to celebrate our anniversary with Mark's eldest two children, (who sat down to have a meal with us at the same restaurant 15 years ago on the day we got married), and the happiest outcome of our marriage so far - our little boy Oliver.  This time last year the relationship with Mark's children was so bad, they had barely spoken for years.  In the last six months, although no words have been spoken about the whys and wherefores of the breakdown, there has been an obvious wish to re-establish a relationship and a forgiveness on both sides I would not have imagined possible.

Enough of the Jeremy Kyle.

To celebrate our anniversary, although we do not normally exchange gifts, I decided it would be a Good Idea to get a Siamese kitten for Mark.  As a surprise.  For years he has been banging on about one day getting a 'proper cat' when ours meet their end, as he once had this siamese who used to sit on his shoulder, come running to see him when he came home from work, blah blah etc etc....

I hunted one down, about an hour's drive away, and on a Friday afternoon, Oliver and I headed off to purchase the Proper Cat.  He was a 12 week old Siamese blue point with a pedigree as long as your arm, very small, very beautiful and VERY vocal.  Which I didn't really appreciate until I was ten minutes down the road and he wouldn't stop yowling.  He yowled on every out breath. Which is a LOT of yowl.  An hour's worth of yowl later, my teeth were on edge and I was starting to doubt the wisdom of my purchase.  Mark was delighted with him, but man cannot live on delight alone.  The yowl continued, on every out breath through the night.  The only thing that stopped him was exhausted cat-napping.  Come the wee hours, we had decided he must be returned before he gave himself a heart attack.  Or we killed each other with our bare hands, whichever was the sooner.

Somehow, after talking to the breeder, we ended up driving back on Monday afternoon to collect a teeny tiny runt of the litter siamese girl to keep the other one company.  By this time  Mark and I were starting to resemble those cartoon characters with gigantic, vein-strained eyes from no sleep.

This one yowled all the way home too.

The little boy siamese was so thrilled to see his litter-mate, they yowled through the night together.  And naughty. These cats were wickedness on a stick.  Whatever stereotype image of siamese kittens you have - they are all true.

And some.

The yowling settled as they found new ways to torture us.  If they couldn't find anything to climb up with their crampon-claws, they would settle for climbing up people.  No cupboard door could be opened before they knew about it and were in there, destroying stuff or squeezing into small cracks leading to the nether.  No door could be closed upon them without them realising they were being excluded from our attention, no matter how temporary, and they were there - yowling urgently and shredding the carpet on the other side in desperation.  The toilet seat needed nailing down, and even if you were sat on it, you needed to guard the little gap at the back by your arse - where there was a gap - there was a compelling need for the gruesome twosome to squeeze into it.

We were prisoners in our own home.  By Wednesday I was meeting the breeder in a layby, handing them over and breathing a sigh of relief as she drove off into the sunset.

It was not to be.  It was akin to how I felt when I first had Oliver - shattered beyond belief and overwhelmed to the point of gibbering.  And I am a decade older.  Neither of us could hack it.

We was crap.

I have no gift to offer Mark as a replacement - the whole kitten thing did for me.

Epic fail.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring

I was rudely startled awake by my mobile phone ringing it's very loud 'classic bell' at 6.40am this morning from under my pillow. 

The reason it was under my pillow in the first place was because the alarm on it was set to go off on a gentle vibrate at 7.40am in order to get up, drag Oliver out of bed, throw on my clothes and go get my parents for a lift to the airport.  The phone call was my Dad asking me to come 15 minutes earlier. 

I ask you.

When my Dad is up - everybody's up.  It's been like that since I was a kid.  Some things never change.  Still, he gave me a guilt-filled tenner at the airport, so Oliver and I scoffed a Subway on the way home.  Hee hee. 

I have laboured through the daily chore that is the maths session, losing my temper in a quite bonkers way when I discovered that Oliver had used the calculator to find out how many 4s there were in 1024.  He is, I find to my distress, a naturally lazy child - looking for the line of least resistance in things which he need not.  In my opinion.  Which is the same as a God-given truth, as everyone knows.

His waily defence was that I told him he could use the calculator for 'awkward' sums, and that there were 4 digits involved.  Bloody hell.  Between hissing and spitting uncontrollably I tried to explain that by 'awkward' I meant four million divided by 14.8, or something like that.  Poor, poor child.  All he will learn over the years by being home educated is that his mother should be institutionalised. 

calories schmalories.

Last Sunday whilst scoffing my lunch at work, I was reading the magazine which comes with the Mail On Sunday.  In it was an article about three sisters who started off a café together, and now it is one of those trendy/vintage hangouts for locals and visitors alike.

I was drawn to this recipe:

and dutifully toddled off to purchase ingredients post-fasting days last week.

In another fuck me sideways moment, I realised that this recipe calls for nearly 8 bars of chocolate. 

EIGHT!!

This is not a low, or even reasonable calorie-loaded treat.  I soldiered on, and produced thirty-two, chocolate-covered, biscuit-filled babies. 

Oh, they is nice, but I am truly not convinced they are worth the cellulite.  In fact I have worked myself up about this to the point of emailing the sisters a piece of my mind.  This is basically a biscuit cake/fridge cake/rocky road thing and is so unnecessarily sugar and fat heavy it has made me feel quite cross.  Particularly as they tout it as something the local children can't get enough of.  Whilst bemoaning the chocolate outrage to a colleague at work, she told me of her recipe, and bought in her version for me to try. 

Here they are together, mine and hers.  Hers is on the left.

Visually, not much difference, and they don't taste significantly different either.

And, as an added bonus,  you can't feel your own teeth rotting in your head when you tuck into her version. 

Chocolate Splodge.

Meh. 

last night there was wine

A little 'health' update.

I did 'Dry January' this year, largely in a bid to instantly cut the wine habit I had allowed to spiral out of control in December, (at practically a bottle a night for the last week of the year, I felt this was probably dipping into the realms of excessive drinking), and found this worked well for me.

I can confirm that January was not a barrel of laughs as a result of  no alcohol - that would be a big fat lie as looking forward to tipples at the weekend is standard adult practice methinks.  But I did find, much to my great surprise, that I felt 'happier' - which is weird.  Maybe years of wine has caused happiness mood swings - times of feeling wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee as I look forward to an evening of a nice dry white, and times of feeling boooo hissss as I endure 24 hours of feeling a bit lousy due to an excess of wheeeeeee the night before.  With no alcohol in my system, I felt a general sense of calm wellbeing, which is hitherto unknown in my world. 

So, with the advent of February I swore I would not slip back into old habits, and I consume no more than 2 bottles of wine per week.  Still probably a tad more than the Government health limits, but hey. 

Last night there was nearly a whole bottle left in the fridge.  Whilst making a baked bean and mushroom lasagne, I drank it.  Quickly.  Then I felt very pissed.  Then I recall being on the Internet and thinking what a good idea it would be to purchase things whilst tiddly, thereby removing the sense of guilt associated with buying things you don't really need or can afford. 

Omigod.

This morning, after I had stumbled out of bed at 4am for lots of water and paracetemol, I was beset by the terrible vision of perfume and handbags.

MUCH to my enormous relief, after checking Amazon and Ebay  I have not got a vat of Narciso Rodriguez eau de parfum on the way accompanied by a few Orla Kiely sling bags.  Seems I have a smidgeon of self control after all.  But the fact that these thoughts were even in my head is alarming to say the least.

I will not be drinking wine tonight. 

I have been hauling my cookies out of bed twice a week for the last couple of weeks to swim at 7am at the Golf Club.  More endure than enjoy, although I feel great about life and myself as I plough up and down the chlorine highway with my goggles on a la Rebecca Adlington.  (but not as fit or fast obvs.)

My weight remains constant (and constantly a stone lighter than this time last year) thanks to the 5:2 diet which has been the easiest and bestest diet ever.

I am doing Pilates at home regularly, and really love the way it makes me feel - longer and leaner - really.  I can feel muscles venturing out beneath the layers of flab on my arse cheeks and stomach and this is a nice surprise I can tell you.  This DVD is ace - in 10 minute sections, very do-able.  No, I am not on commission.

In crochet news, the Mosaic Blanket, more commonly known as 'that bloody blanket', is now demanding 12 squares per day in order to reach completion in April.  This is because I put in on to a proper double bed to see how it measures up instead of plopping it on our king size and saying 'oh yeah - that many squares, that'll do' as I have been doing up until now.  Gulp. It needs to be at least 28 wide by 32 (if I can get away with it) or 34 (if not).  I have so far done 575 squares.  Quite a few left to do then.

Meh.

After you, Madam.

Stupid buggers.

This cat flap has been in situ for many, many months now, and they use it quite gratefully in the wee hours.  However, during the day, when we are in, they sit and gaze mournfully at the door handle, mewing pitifully until either a) one of us loses our temper and jumps up to open the door for them or b) they get shoved through the cat flap by the scruff of their neck like a turkey being stuffed with ill humour on Christmas morning.  More often than not though, I decide to brazen it out and ignore them, occasionally screaming 'go out the frigging flap' across the kitchen through gritted teeth.  For this I am treated to a look of contempt which would curdle milk at twenty paces and that only a cat can pull off.

Meh.

The Cat Flap War rages on.

Last week we joined the local Golf and Country Club.  Tres posh.  I have the thought in my head that Oliver, being home educated, is disadvantaged of usual physical activities open to your regular schoolboy.  ie PE lessons and twatting about in the playground twice a day.  This led me to researching sporty type locations - one being David Lloyd health clubs. 

My goodness, (or words to that effect) that is one mightily priced place.  For the price of a weekly shop I would be allowed to visit between the hours of 6.30am and 4pm.  Since I only wanted to be able to play tennis and swim with Oliver, and maybe cough up for the extra pilates class now and again, I felt this was unfairly overpriced and said so.  Smug Adam, who was showing me around, said that they could not take away the gym membership to reduce the price as it was 'hard to police' who was using it, and that I would probably find I would use it anyway.  Hah, NOT Adam.  Just get a door and a digi lock or swipe pad like other gyms, you knob.  He annoyed me.  A lot.  I didn't join.

Instead I have taken on an extra shift for work and coughed for the local G&CC where I don't feel duty bound to enter the gym AT ALL and Oliver can play tennis, golf and swim to his heart's content.  That is, whenever I can be arsed to drive down there.  The biggest draw is the fact they have an outdoor pool with space to 'lounge', so my keenness to join up is largely driven by my vision of hot summer afternoons spent sunbathing and splashing about in cool water.  This will, no doubt be entirely spoilt by Oliver whining at me that he is bored as there will be no electricity supply to plug himself into for the purposes of uploading himself into the internet.

I am already bracing myself for this argument. 

I shall overcome.

In other news we have been driving to the nether reaches of the country for Oliver to play Pokemon, that is, Wakefield, which is about as far north as I have ever been apart from when we flew to Iceland. 

 

 

I felt like a softy southerner the minute I got out of the car.  I kid you not, I struggled to understand much of what was said to me throughout the day, as people tended to talk north language which I am unfamiliar with.  This said, the general friendliness of people did outstrip what I have experienced down this way, so maybe there is some truth in the north-south divide.  Oliver did not have a good tournament, coming in 14th, but as this is around his National Ranking, he can't really expect much more than that I suppose.  He met up with old friends from previous tournaments though, and it is this camaraderie within the Pokémon community which keeps me keen to encourage the whole hobby.  I see lads (we are talking men in their twenties here, remember I am quite old now) turning up and greeting each other with such warmth and humour that I see it and want that for my son.  I saw it at the Worlds in Vancouver last year too - the friendship between players which has been established over the years.  Nice.

I have, against all my principles, started a facebook account for Oliver.  I bloody hate facebook.  With a passion.  HOWEVER - I can see that for Oliver, with all his Pokémon friends the other side of Bristol, it is bloody useful.  I have told him that I do not want to see 'friends' on there who live down the road or relations we see on a regular basis.  Pointless.  In my opinion.  Which is right, obvs.

I am one month away from completing this:

Nuff said.